The ruling was sparked by a complaint from a man in Spain, who
claimed to the Spanish data-protection agency that an auction
notice of his repossessed home that appeared in Google's search
results infringed his privacy.

Gonzalez's situation is one of 180 in Spain in which complainants
have requested Google delete their personal information from the
web,
Reuters reports.

Here's what the court papers say in regard to requesting that
information be removed from Google:

If, following a search made on the basis of a person's name, the
list of results displays a link to a web page which contains
information on the person in question, that data subject may
approach the operator directly and, where the operator does not
grant his request, bring the matter before the competent
authorities in order to obtain, under certain conditions, the
removal of that link from the list of results.

Viviane Reding, European commissioner for justice of fundamental
rights and citizenship, posted
to Facebook that the ruling is a success for personal data
protection.

"The data belongs to the individual, not to the company," she
wrote. "And unless there is a good reason to retain this data, an
individual should be empowered—by law—to request erasure of this
data."

Google's Nightmare

A Google representative sent us the following comment via email
regarding the decision:

This is a disappointing ruling for search engines and online
publishers in general. We are very surprised that it differs so
dramatically from the Advocate General's opinion and the warnings
and consequences that he spelled out. We now need to take time to
analyze the implications.

The European Union Court of Justice's decision means more than
just a simple policy change for Google. The ruling could
mean a complete overhaul in the way Google indexes the internet,
according to David P. Fidler, professor of law at the Indiana
University Maurer School of Law.

"It's just sort of an astonishing possibility that Google is
looking at, to play this sort of role in whether or not the
individual has the right to be forgotten," Fidler said. "I can
imagine Google is saying 'we don't have any idea what the
implications of this are.'"

Fidler pointed out that if one specific case in Spain could play
such a heavy role in this ruling, there's a possibility that
Google will face a giant influx of requests to take information
down following the decision. Every individual has a
different idea of what privacy means, Fidler said, which leaves
Google with the daunting and overwhelming task of juggling the
public interest versus privacy.

"Google has to sort of figure out this balancing," he said. "It's
potentially a nightmare of epic proportions for Google."

Irina Raicu, internet ethics program director at Santa Clara
University, said that there's no straightforward answer when
determining whether or not this is a positive step for the
internet.

"It's hard to say that anything is good or bad for the internet
overall," she said. "It obviously impacts some people and not
others."

Raicu pointed out that this idea of erasing your digital past
wasn't an issue until search engines became so prominent.

"I think we
have to recognize that search engines themselves change the
status quo," she said. "Some information used to have a certain
shelf life. Now with the internet and the web, it's like
'Groundhog Day' all over again."

It's too early
to determine how this could affect Google's operations in Europe,
but Fidler emphasized that the outcome could potentially be
severe. If Google gets slammed with requests to strip links from
its search results, the company may be forced to put more
resources toward maintaining its search engine in
Europe.

"We don't know
at the moment in terms of the implications, but that's why I can
imagine Google's head is spinning," he said. "The consequences
could be very expensive and very administratively
burdensome."